Page 45 of Romance and Peppermint Lattes
“Nolan Adams does that?” Carol sounded skeptical. She arched her brows as though she couldn’t completely trust Maryanne’s observations.
“When Barbara told him I was coming down with a virus, he came over to check on me and—”
“As well he should!” Barbara declared. “He was the one who gave you that germ in the first place.”
“I’m not entirely sure I caught it from him.”
Carol and Barbara exchanged a look. Slowly each shook her head, and then all three shared a warm smile.
“I think we might be too late,” Barbara said theatrically, speaking from the side of her mouth.
“She’s showing all the signs,” Carol agreed solemnly.
“You’re right, I fear,” Barbara responded in kind. “She’s already in love with him.”
“Good grief, no,” Carol wailed, pressing her hands to her mouth. “Say it isn’t so. She’s too young and vulnerable.”
“It’s a pity, such a pity.”
“I can’t help but agree. Maryanne is much too sweet for Nolan Adams. I just hope he appreciates her.”
“He won’t,” Carol muttered, reverting to her normal voice, “but then no man ever fully appreciates a woman.”
“It’s such a pity men act the way they do,” Barbara said in a sad voice.
“Some men,” Maryanne added.
Carol and Barbara dabbed their eyes and solemnly tossed the used tissues into the growing heap in the middle of their circle.
The plan had been to gather all the used tissues and ceremonially dump them in the toilet, flush their “pity pot,” and then celebrate all the good things in their lives.
The idea for this little party had been an impromptu one of Maryanne’s on a lonely Friday night. She’d been feeling blue and friendless and decided to look for a little innocent fun. She’d phoned Carol and learned she was a weekend widow; her husband had gone fishing with some cronies. Barbara had thought the idea was a good one herself, since she’d just broken her longest fingernail and was in the mood for a shoulder to cry on.
A pity party seemed just the thing to help three lonely women make it through a bleak Friday night.
***
Maryanne awoke Saturday morning with a humdinger of a headache. Wine and the ice cream they’d had at the end of the evening definitely didn’t mix.
If her head hadn’t been throbbing so painfully, she might have recognized sooner that her apartment had no heat. Her cantankerous radiator was acting up again. It did that some mornings, but she’d always managed to coax it back to life with a few well-placed whacks. The past few days had been unusually cold for early November—well below freezing at night.
She reached for her robe and slippers, bundling herself up like a December baby out in her first snowstorm. Cupping her hands over her mouth, she blew until a frosty mist formed.
A quickly produced cup of coffee with two extra-strength aspirin took the edge off her headache. Maryanne shivered while she slipped into jeans, sweatshirt and a thick winter coat. She suspected she resembled someone preparing to join an Arctic expedition.
She fiddled with the radiator, twisting the knobs and slamming her hand against the side, but the only results were a couple of rattles and a hollow clanking.
Not knowing what else to try, she got out her heavy cast-iron skillet and banged it against the top of the rad in hopes of reviving the ageing pipes.
The noise was deafening, vibrating through the room like a jet aircraft crashing through the sound barrier. If that wasn’t enough, Maryanne’s entire body began to quiver, starting at her arm and spreading outward in a rippling effect that caused her arms and legs to tremble.
“What the hell’s going on over there?” Nolan shouted from the other side of the wall. He didn’t wait for her to answer and a couple of seconds later came barreling through her front door, wild-eyed and dishevelled.
“What... Where?” He was carrying a baseball bat, and stalked to the middle of her apartment, scanning the interior for what Maryanne could only assume were invaders.
“I don’t have any heat,” she announced, tucking the thin scarf more tightly around her ears.
Nolan blinked. She’d apparently woken him from a sound sleep. He was barefoot and dressed in pyjama bottoms, and although he wore a shirt, it was unbuttoned, revealing a broad muscular chest dusted with curly black hair.
